


Wash His Name From My Lips

by splot



Series: Rewrite the Ending of the Play [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, I'm sorry I really am, If you don't like sad things I don't suggest reading this, M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:28:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1387621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splot/pseuds/splot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's just hit 2am, and the boys still haven't shown up. Darcy supposes they're in medical, but if it was really serious, she'd have received a call from Clint, or one of them. She yawns as she stands with her mug, just starting to make her way to the kitchen when she hears the door unlock and slowly swing open.<br/>There's no banter. That's her first sign that something's wrong. Steve and James usually stumble in, tiredly trading meaningless insults and snarky comments, smiling exhaustedly at Darcy and falling into her arms and care.<br/>Tonight she hears nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wash His Name From My Lips

Darcy waits for them at their place in the Tower as always. They don't call. Don't message. It's as usual. They made a promise. If something bad happened, she wanted to know in person.   
She's sitting in the red panties James adores (he thinks the bow on the front makes them adorable) and one of Steve's long sweaters(the navy blue one that smells like him), sleeves hanging over her hands as she cradles the mug of hot chocolate that's ridiculous sweet (but James loves it, so she does too). It's horribly cold outside, but all she needs is her boys and it'll be a warm spring day in their little perfect world.   
She snorts. Time with them has made her soft. Darcy rolls her eyes, taking a sip from her mug.

* * *

 

It's just hit 2am, and the boys still haven't shown up. Darcy supposes they're in medical, but if it was really serious, she'd have received a call from Clint, or one of them. She yawns as she stands with her mug, switching off the tv and pulling the hem of the sweater down from her hips until it hits her thighs. She's just starting to make her way to the kitchen when she hears the door unlock and slowly swing open.   
There's no banter. That's her first sign that something's wrong. Steve and James usually stumble in, tiredly trading meaningless insults and snarky comments, smiling exhaustedly at Darcy and falling into her arms and care.   
Tonight she hears nothing.   
James stands at the door, staring at Darcy, his face blank. He's favouring his right leg. His face is littered in bruises and scratches, and his breathing is uneven. Darcy's heart drops.  _Steve's still in medical. He has to be._  
"How bad is it?" She asks quietly, knuckles white as she grips her mug. James doesn't speak, doesn't move for a few quiet moments that get Darcy's hands shaking, her heart speeding uncomfortably.   
And then he reaches the bionic arm up, over his back, and pulls off something that isn't a bag full of dirty laundry. It hangs limply by his side, before it drops between them with a loud clatter, echoed by the shattering of Darcy's mug against the floor.  
Her knees hit the ground the same time Steve's shield stops spinning and bangs dully a final time.   
She doesn't sob. She doesn't scream, or shriek, or even cry silently. She doesn't demand to be taken to see him. She doesn't pretend he's still alive.  
Darcy sits there, knees cradled to her chest, and there's a strange noise in her ears as she stares at the shield. James is still leaning against the doorframe, staring hollowly at her, incapable of offering comfort, incapable of being human without Steve.   
It's only after a few minutes does the strange noise start to make sense to Darcy.   
It's her own voice, a high-pitched whisper. One name, over and over.  
 _"Steve? Steve? Steve? Steve?"_  
James slams his fist into the wall with a yell that ends in a strangled sob, and he crumples to his knees, desperate, choked sobs forcing themselves out of his throat as he clutches his head with his hands, one bloodied and bruised and broken.   
Eventually, they both quiet down, curled in on themselves. Just staring at the shield until it's daylight and Natasha and Clint find them.   
Clint takes James to the bedroom, carefully cleaning and bandaging James' hand. Neither one speaks. Just sit side by side, hollow looks, and dark-ringed eyes.   
Natasha takes Darcy to the bathroom, runs a hot bath, and starts to help Darcy out of Steve's sweater. As soon as Darcy realizes what Natasha's doing, she becomes lively, fighting against Natasha and clutching the sweater, keeping it on, and she hears that strange noise again. Her voice, one coherent word between cries and sobs and protests.   
 _"Steve-... He-I-Steve--Steve!--"_  
And Natasha wraps her arms around Darcy, and they both fall to the cool tile floor, clutching at each other.  
It's the first time Natasha's cried in a very long time.

* * *

 

After that, Darcy and James don't leave the bed for three days.   
Pepper oversees the funeral arrangements. Tony stays in his workshop.  
Natasha and Jane bring food to Darcy and James, though it is barely touched.  
Thor, Sif and the Warriors Three fly in from Asgard. Coulson's team grounds and stays at Stark Tower. Bruce flies in from Calcutta, T'Challa from Wakanda, even Clint's brother, Barney shows up at the tower, followed by Kate Bishop. Logan Howlett, Kitty Pryde, Kurt Wagner, Scott Summers, Emma Frost and Ororo Munroe arrive on behalf of the X-Men. The Fantastic Four, Carol Danvers, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are given places at the tower, too.

James and Darcy stay in bed. Darcy still wears Steve's sweater. James presses his face into Steve's pillow. They get up for necessities, and pick at the food that's brought for them.   
When Darcy sleeps, she cries out softly for Steve and shifts restlessly.  
When James sleeps, he yells for Steve, tossing and turning until Darcy wakes him and holds him as he sobs.

On the day of the funeral, Jane and Sif arrive. Surprisingly, Sif is the one who coaxes Darcy out of bed, arm wrapped gently around her to support her. Jane leaves a tray of food, telling James sternly to eat.   
When the girls leave, he picks at the food, taking a bite here and there, until Natasha shows up. She tells him softly, in Russian, to follow her. She leads him into the bathroom and sits him down in a chair, covering his bare neck and chest with a towel, lathering up his scruffy cheeks and jaw, and gently scraping away the rough stubble with a razor. When she finishes, she wipes his neck and face of the lather with a warm washcloth, before putting aside the razor and picking up a pair of scissors. Now she moves behind him, trimming his hair neatly until it's short again.   
"Shower." She tells him gently when she finishes, cleaning up the mess of his hair before leaving the bathroom. He doesn't protest. Just steps into the shower and lets the water wash over him until Natasha switches off the water, pulling him out and pointing him to the suit on the bed.

Darcy's taken to Jane's room, and Sif once again coaxes Darcy into relinquishing Steve's sweater, promising she'll get it back. Jane nudges Darcy into the shower, with a reassuring smile, but Darcy can't bring herself to smile back. When she emerges from the shower in the robe Jane had provided, she's sat at the vanity, and Sif provides her with something to eat as Jane blowdries and straightens her hair. Darcy picks at her food, and Sif takes over her hair, weaving through braids and and pulling them back off her face. Eventually, Darcy pushes the food aside, and Jane returns (Darcy hadn't even noticed she'd gone), holding something small and hot pink.   
"I wasn't sure if..." Jane trails off, holding out Darcy's makeup bag to her. Darcy hesitates, before taking it and opening it. She pulls out her eyeliner and mascara-all waterproof, she thinks wryly- and hesitates again on whether she should wear red lipstick.   
In the end, she pulls out Steve's favourite. _Bombshell red._ Obnoxiously bright, it had reminded him of the pinups from the old days. Her hands shake as she puts it down to put on the dress, but when she applies it, her hands are steady.

* * *

 

The funeral passes in a blur. She and James get in the car that accompanies the hearse covered in the flag and flowers in Steve's colours. The church ceremony doesn't make any sense to either of them- they stare at the casket, clutching each other's hand.   
The burial is the only part that they remember in clarity. Darcy can't watch as the casket is lowered into the ground-- she turns her face into James' chest, and he wraps his arms around her, but he can't look away. Not until they start filling in the grave, the  _thump_ of the dirt hitting wood making him bury his face in Darcy's hair. In his hand is Steve's dogtags, and Natasha and Thor gently guide them back to the car.   
They don't join the post-funeral lunch in Stark Tower. They go to their floor. Darcy goes to Steve's room and strips down to her underwear, picking another of Steve's neatly folded shirts and pulling it on before climbing into bed.   
James goes the piano room. He sits at the piano for a few moments, fingers gliding over the keys but not actually playing. He remembers when Steve bought it for him, put it in the spare room and begged him to play. Steve had always sat next to him as he played, and when Darcy had come along, she had sat on Steve's lap with an awestruck look on her face as she watched his fingers fly.   
 _They would never do that again_.  
He brings the metal fist down on the piano, wood shattering and off-tune notes filling the room until there's nothing left of the piano and the room is a mess of wood and paper.

* * *

 

That night, they sleep in Steve's bed, surrounded by the smell of Steve, fearing the day it starts to fade.   
The next morning, James wakes Darcy with a hand between her legs and tender kisses down her neck. She moans and writhes when he swaps his fingers for his mouth. He doesn't mind that the name she cries out isn't his. The same way she doesn't care that the name he moans is the same name when she has her legs locked around his waist and he's buried deep inside her.   
Tears coat both their cheeks, and red scratches score James' back and chest-- his handprints bruise her skin.

* * *

 

Steve's death is something they never recover from. Darcy becomes more subdued and withdrawn even as she works. James follows orders quietly and efficiently, and comes home to Darcy.   
One day, Darcy finds a sketch Steve had drawn, dated just before his last mission.   
It's James, Darcy and Steve asleep on the couch. Darcy's curled up in James' lap, head resting on his shoulder. His head rests on top of hers, and Steve's head rests in Darcy's lap.   
James finds her like that when he comes home, staring at the drawing with a small smile on her face.   
Silently, he takes the drawing. There's a frame on the wall, with a picture of Darcy and Thor. He takes the picture out, replaces it with the drawing, and hangs it back up, before placing a kiss to Darcy's temple.

They haven't quite healed, but they're starting to. 

* * *

 

A few years later, they call their first son Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry I really am. Based off [this](http://narglepunter.tumblr.com/post/81025256475/wash-his-name-from-my-lips). I'm a horrible person and I should come with a warning.


End file.
